Dancing: Exercise Par Excellence!
“Dancing can be magical and transforming. It can breathe new life into a tired soul; make a spirit soar; unleash locked-away creativity; unite generations and cultures; inspire new romances or rekindle old ones; trigger long-forgotten memories; and turn sadness into joy, if only during the dance.”
Why is dancing such an effective form of exercise? Because it's fun and involves others! But that's not all.
In an article on Stanford University's web site, Richard Powers muses in an article titled "Use It Or Lose It: Dancing Makes You Smarter" :
You've probably heard about the New England Journal of Medicine report on the effects of recreational activities on mental acuity in aging. Here it is in a nutshell.
The 21-year study of senior citizens, 75 and older, was led by the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, funded by the National Institute on Aging, and published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Their method for objectively measuring mental acuity in aging was to monitor rates of dementia, including Alzheimer's disease.
The study wanted to see if any physical or cognitive recreational activities influenced mental acuity. They discovered that some activities had a significant beneficial effect. Other activities had none.
They studied cognitive activities such as reading books, writing for pleasure, doing crossword puzzles, playing cards and playing musical instruments. And they studied physical activities like playing tennis or golf, swimming, bicycling, dancing, walking for exercise and doing housework.
One of the surprises of the study was that almost none of the physical activities appeared to offer any protection against dementia. There can be cardiovascular benefits of course, but the focus of this study was the mind. There was one important exception: the only physical activity to offer protection against dementia was frequent dancing.
Reading - 35% reduced risk of dementia
Bicycling and swimming - 0%
People who played the hardest gained the most: For example, seniors who did crossword puzzles four days a week had a 47% lower risk of dementia than those who did the puzzles once a week.
Playing golf - 0%
Dancing frequently - 76%.
That was the greatest risk reduction of any activity studied, cognitive or physical.
On WebMD this study is elaborated on in an article titled "Dancing Your Way To Health":
Dance can challenge your mind as well as your muscles. At least one observational study has shown sharper minds with ballroom dancing. The study appeared in The New England Journal of Medicine two years ago. Joe Verghese, MD, and colleagues studied 469 people who were at least 75 years old. At the study's start, they answered surveys about mental and physical activities, like doing crossword puzzles or dancing. Back then, none had dementia. Five years later, 124 had dementia. Frequent dancers had a reduced risk of dementia compared with those who rarely or never danced. Of 11 physical activities considered, only dancing was tied to a lower dementia risk, Verghese tells WebMD. Most dancers did ballroom dancing, says Verghese. He's an assistant neurology professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York.